Six million people affected
Posted on 04/28/2007 3:48:41 PM PDT by Stoat
Nine primary care trusts have a specific policy to refuse joint replacements to obese patients. And four will not consider orthopaedic surgery if patients smoke.
In all, six million patients live in areas affected by so-called lifestyle rationing.
Jean Ryan has been told she cannot have her hip replaced until she loses weight.
But she says that is impossible because the pain means she can barely move, let alone exercise.
Despite living on a pension she has taken out an £8000 loan to pay for surgery abroad.
She said: "I don't think it is fair. If I lived in Bournemouth there would be no bar on being overweight. I can't see any other way round the problem. I can't see them helping. So you have to help yourself. Either that or you end up in a wheelchair."
The Sky News survey shows that in the absence of national rules, local PCTs are making up their own.
North Staffordshire has the toughest restrictions. To qualify for any routine elective operation, patients must have a body mass index below 30. They must also have given up smoking for at least three months.
Andrew Haldenby from pressure group Doctors for Reform said there should be national rules for the National Health Service.
He said: " These decisions should be taken in Parliament. These are exceptionally serious thorny questions. They get to the heart of what the NHS is."
According to Suffolk PCT obese patients are at higher risk of blood loss and infections after operations.
The PCT is also £31million in debt and Public Health Director Dr Peter Bradley said money must be used wisely.
"We have limited resources and we have to make sure we are using them to best effect. It's sensible to use that money where we know the treatment is going to work."
The Department of Health insisted that treatment is delivered according to patients' clinical need, not their lifestyle choice. And decisions are taken by doctors, not managers or politicians.
:: PCTs with a specific policy denying joint surgery to obese patients:
North Staffordshire
Stoke
Lincolnshire
North Lincolnshire
Milton Keynes
Hereford
West Hertfordshire
East and North Hertfordshire
Suffolk
:: PCTs with a policy denying joint surgery to smokers:
North Staffordshire
Lincolnshire
North Lincolnshire
Milton Keynes
:: PCTs that expect doctors to consider bodyweight and tobacco use before referring for surgery
Surrey
South Staffordshire
Dorset
Central and East Cheshire
My husband’s doctor billed our insurance company (Secure Horizons) $55,000 for my husband’s hip replacement. He screwed up and made the leg too short and had to re-do the operation. He charged another $55,000 to put in another longer device. The leg is STILL too short and there’s a limit to how many times it can be done. However as with a lawyer who loses a case, he still gets paid, and so does a doctor who botches a job.
That’s just awful, I’m terribly sorry for the suffering that you and your family have endured.
May God Bless you and I hope that things will be eventually set right for you.
They'd immediately go on welfare here, and go to the head of the line ahead of the taxpayers getting stuck with their bills. If you've ever been in the hospital with a welfareite, it's a real eye opener. They know exactly how to work the system and demand to be treated first, with the BEST doctors, and the best treatment regardless of what it costs. They get loud and obnoxious and get what they want just to shut them up. With our welfare system, we've created a monster.
I don’t know, I think it’s more than “economic” medical triage.
There truly are some medical procedures that are basically wasted, at best, or open the patient to even worse (and more costly) consequences, at worst if the patient’s circumstances don’t support the procedure.
Replacing the knee of a person who is not, because of obesity, going to be able to exercise the new knee enough to make it work well is sort of dumb. So is replacing the knee of a person who is going to put 400 pounds on it, thus jeopardizing the success of the surgery in the first place and significantly shortening the lifetime of the artificial knee in the second place.
And so on.
Is this really a question of “fault”?
Seems to me it’s more the fact that some circumstances, by their very nature, make some medical procedures either prone to failure or prone to the development of secondary problems.
Reminds me of that hit novelty song from the late 40’s by Arthur Godfrey “I don’t want her you can have her she’s too fat for me,she’s too fat for me,she’s too fat for me- (”Too Fat Polka”)May be the NHS play the song as a promo to get patients to slim down.
Flame away.
But when are people going to accept responsibility for their own health?
Outcome-based intervention is a common emergency practice; for elective surgery it seems rather pecuniary
Will the insurance pay for your home damage if you don’t fix your roof?, no, Why? because it’ll just happen again.
The joints’ going is a direct result of excess weight.
It’s only in the US that fat people don’t think they should have to pay the price of their fat.
You really do have a point concerning aids.
It is self imposed as is fat and smoking.
Any actuary can tell you that G-d decides mortality rates, besides, weight, smoking, private plane licenses, (and now, unprotected gay sex.)
hey! look at my 49 and 50 (and no flames!)
Lemme guess -- You are perfect in every way.
ping a ling...
It would make sense for insurance companies to make those with smokers and the obese pay more.
If you are obese, your benefits get cut from 80/20 to 70/30.
If you also smoke, your benefits go to 60/40.
Just my thoughts.
I can only imagine that the quote of $4000 to $6000 is only for the actual hip. It's the extras that mount up - anesthetist, post op. care, hospital stay; pain meds. etc.
I think there is at least one zero missing from that figure of $6000.
However, if it is correct, please share your source as I have a friend about to have both hips replaced and she would love to have the jobs done for $12,000.
FRegards,
Perfect? How did you know?
But, what does that have to do with people paying for their decision to become overweight and thereby making knee and hip replacement (costly) only a temporary measure if they don’t take care of the cause (usually), or at least a hindrance to their healing: LOSING WEIGHT
Is there some reason that you can see the need for self reliance in some financial/ esoteric sense, but when a person chooses to live a lifestyle that leads to illness all the rest of the country should pay for his interventions?
You are talking about health insurance, (which, due to the fact that it is practically mandated as a job benefit is totally skewed and unfair as it is.), and I agree.
But in the life insurance business, go and calculate your annual term rates as a smoker, (or not), and as an obese person, (and not.)
There you’ll see the expected mortality rates fairly represented in the fees.
Sarah
Do you feel the same way about shoulder and elbow injuries for tennis players?
Maybe this will finally prod these porkers to lose the pounds. Nothing else usually does.
Do you feel the same way about reimbursing homes for those who live in eroding coastline neighborhoods?
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